Category Archives:
US Politics

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Jewish Historical Society channels Joe McCarthy, and cancels JVP event on Balfour

Philip Weiss on

The American Jewish Historical Society in New York was set to host a discussion later this month of the Balfour Declaration by civil rights lawyer Robert Herbst, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, and Palestinian lawyer Jonathan Kuttab. Then the event came under attack from far-right pro-Israel supporters and the history organization folded, canceling the discussion as well as a play reading on the US relationship to Israel.

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Leading journalists call 2nd Amendment an anachronism — but spare Zionism

Philip Weiss on

The nefarious gun lobby is open for criticism. In the New York Times, Bret Stephens says the Second Amendment is an anachronism and should be repealed. Well that is true of Zionism, too, but Stephens is in the tank for that ideology. And David Brooks describes the ingrained political culture of gun-rights but he can never turn that lens on American Jewish cultural/political support for an ethnocratic state in historical Palestine.

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In decertifying Iran deal, Trump caves to Israel. But who will say so?

James North and Philip Weiss on

Supporters of the embattled Iran deal in the U.S. will not win if they cannot identify the foreign country that along with its domestic lobby is still trying to undermine President Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement: Israel. Thankfully, the lobby itself is split over the deal.

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Feel-good Gaza poster in NY window draws feel-bad response from neighbor

Philip Weiss on

A New Yorker has a feel-good poster with the word GAZA on it in their window. A neighbor tapes an anonymous letter to the door saying they are showing support for people who “would have me and my family and my friends mutilated to a cheering crowd.” Yet another sign of paranoia among Jewish Israel supporters.

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‘Forward’ finally publishes Stephen Walt — ten years too late

Philip Weiss on

How pathetic: The Jewish newspaper the Forward finally allows Stephen Walt to state his argument about the Israel lobby’s power, 10 years after he published a book on the subject. Till now Walt was redlined as an alleged anti-Semite– which was a travesty of intellectual honesty inside the Jewish community. And now Walt’s warnings about apartheid in Palestine are too late.

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Video: Senator Chris Van Hollen announces opposition to Israel Anti-Boycott Act

Saqib Ali on

At an event at the University of Maryland, Senator Chris Van Hollen told Professor Shibley Telhami that he does not support the Israel Anti-Boycott Act which could jail boycotters of Israel for up to 20 years: “I don’t think any American for example should be threatened with fines or imprisonment for expressing their views in the form of participating in economic actions with respect to Israel.” His statement could give other legislators on the fence cover to also oppose the bill.

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Watch the cathartic Vietnam documentary

Philip Weiss on

The left is trashing the Vietnam documentary by Ken Burns on PBS. Though it is didactic and middle-brow and America-centric, the documentary is majestic in its depiction of murderous arrogance, and should educate millions to the horrors of occupation and the ferocity of a subjugated people’s resistance.

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Support for Israel is tumbling– even among young Orthodox Jews

Philip Weiss on

“While 71 percent of Modern Orthodox Jews 55 and older actively support the Jewish state, less than half — 43 percent — of Jews 18 to 34 do the same”– says a new survey. So decline in Jewish support for Israel is happening in all segments of the community.

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US bans Palestinian runner from Chicago Marathon days before race

Sheren Khalel on

The United States denied entry this week to a well-known runner from the occupied West Bank, shattering his dream of competing in the Chicago Marathon. “They’ve really ruined this dream by stopping me from having the chance to run in the US,” Mohammad Alqadi tells Mondoweiss.

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Three megadonors (who just happen to love Israel) are pushing Trump against Iran deal

Philip Weiss on

Trump’s policy on Iran may be driven by three Israel-loving donors, Adelson, Singer, and Marcus, but it is verboten in Washington to identify the Israel lobby as the main adversary of the Iran deal, especially in the wake of the Phil Giraldi/Valerie Plame uproar, which has fueled the neoconservative claim that the antiwar left is anti-semitic.

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Balfour Declaration, now 100, was ‘gun pointed at heads’ of Palestinians — Khalidi

Philip Weiss on

At NYU, Rashid Khalidi says four Arab countries have been destroyed and ISIS would cut the throats of a quarter of the Syrian population, so he can’t blame Arabs for worrying about other issues more than Palestine. The historian also says that Palestinians faced a unique colonial problem because Zionism had 3 sources of support, international legitimacy at a time of decolonization, British backing, and a “river” of money from international Zionist movement.

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Samuel Freedman extols Jewish ‘love affair’ with Jewish state– while decrying ‘dogma of white supremacy’

Philip Weiss on

Author Samuel Freedman is blind to Palestinian conditions in an article in the Forward celebrating the U.S. Jewish “love affair” with “the Jewish state.” And meantime he decries the “ideology of white supremacy” in the New York Times and praises the civil rights movement for ending Jim Crow. After 50 years of occupation and apartheid in Palestine, you can’t have it both ways.

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After article was rejected and publishers yawned, Walt and Mearsheimer dropped ‘The Israel Lobby’ in 2005

Philip Weiss on

“In the age of the internet, this article just ricocheted all over the world very very quickly. Rashid Khalidi at Columbia University told me that the morning after the piece had hit the internet, 14 different people had sent him a link for the piece” — John Mearsheimer reflects on the article The Israel Lobby, 10 years after its publication as a book.

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Why the split inside the Democratic Party over BDS needs to happen

Philip Weiss on

For 50 years the Democratic Party establishment has been able to stifle pro-Palestinian efforts as too radical for US politics. That red line is breaking down today though, as the permanent occupation marked its 50th anniversary, BDS gains adherents among young Dems, and the Jewish monolith supporting Israel fractures. It’s about time.

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Is Yiddish the language of the Jewish soul?

Abba Solomon on

Abba Solomon see the film, The Golden Age of Second Avenue, a documentary love poem for Yiddish theater in NYC, from 1890s-1930s, as part of an effort to save the Yiddish legacy of New York’s Lower East Side and observes, “The weight of memory, and the histories Jews tell of themselves, the tradition and experience we imagine we are heir to, shape the way the creation and conduct of the State of Israel is considered.”

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Rachel Maddow’s lineup of crazy U.N. speeches spotlights Arafat– and leaves out Netanyahu!

Philip Weiss and Scott Roth on

If you are going to make a list of crazy UN speeches, you really have to twist yourself into a pretzel not to mention Benjamin Netanyahu’s theatrics. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC does the pretzel: she overlooks Netanyahu’s cartoon bomb and 44 seconds of silence, then cites Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, wearing a gun to the General Assembly in 1974.

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Read Netanyahu’s UN speech, which praises Trump to the skies and matches his North Korea hyperbole on Iran

Mondoweiss Editors on

Israeli PM Netanyahu was seen nodding during Donald Trump’s speech to the UN, and he later praised it to the skies. “I’ve listened to countless speeches in this hall, but I can say this: none were bolder, none more courageous and forthright than the one delivered by President Trump.” Netanyahu went on to offer red meat rhetoric of his own on Iran. He referred to the country by name 37 times and likened it to North Korea, saying it was conducting a campaign of conquest across the Middle East and threatens the world with ballistic weapons.

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‘NYT’ piece on nationalism as a cause for ethnic cleansing leaves out the Nakba

Philip Weiss on

Amanda Taub’s smart piece in the NYT on ethnic cleansing as an inevitable consequence of national “self-determination” cites examples of Rohingya, Roma, Jews and Muslims. The glaring omission is the Nakba, the expulsion of 700,000+ Palestinians during the creation of Israel. The Nakba is an American issue; Bernie Sanders and historian David Myers agree on that. But the Times can’t address Palestinian conditions.